What we have learned this month....

• Selling a house is way less stressful than buying one
• Half-bathrooms are extremely satisfying to clean
• Anna is the cutest thing ever (oh wait, we already knew that)

• Townhomes are cool for about a week...(saw that one coming)
• Running in humidity is very wet
• Jeremy working from 8-5 is AWESOME
• Ceiling fans are highly underrated (what I wouldn't give!!)
• Renting is highly overrated (are we sensing a theme?)
• Either everyone in the Midwest was lying about the terrible summers, or this has been the best summer weather in the history of ever

• Having a two-story house is doing wonders for our quads
• Eli is growing up

(Riding off into the sunset with NO training wheels!)

Injuries

So we've had a little bit of a rough time the last couple weeks. The boys were very emotional the first week or two we were here. The tiniest things would set them off and Eli was very angry and Connor was very tantrum-y. It was lots of fun. I expected this, because it happened to Eli last time we moved (and lasted for months). Moving is just hard on everyone, even three and five year-olds.

Anyway, this is just to preface my story. So the 2nd week we were all here, Eli started complaining that his knee was really hurting him. He was having a lot of trouble moving his right leg. He could either keep it straight and hobble around or keep it bent and crawl around, but anything in between resulted in tears and screaming. Now the tears and screaming were not that unusual because of the very low fuse Eli had at that time so I didn't think too much of it. However, this went on for a few days and finally I called our pediatrician in Oregon who said I should probably take him in to get it checked out. So on Friday (week and a half ago) I took him in and they did an xray and found nothing. Eventually it got better and he's back to normal now, but it was a good week or so of him not using it. I guess he just pulled a muscle or something? I honestly don't know.

This was what I saw as soon as we got to the doctor that afternoon. I probably should have just turned around and headed back home...

So that was Friday...then the next Monday we were playing at the park and Connor fell off a step thing at the playground and fell on his arm. The kid plays hard and he falls a lot, so this was nothing crazy. He immediately erupted in tears and screaming and I consoled him and told him it was okay and to be tough, etc. etc. Connor likes to wail and say things like "It hurts so so so so bad!" for every tiny little scrape so again I didn't think too much of it. However, it kept hurting him and he kept it bent against his body all the time. The last thing I wanted to do was spend hours and $$ at the doctor again for nothing, so I was not very eager to take him in. The next day it was still really bothering him and his wrist and hand were swollen. I thought maybe he sprained his wrist, since he seemed to have all those symptoms, so I gave him Ibuprofen and wrapped it in an ace bandage most of the time. Finally on Thursday, we realized it was possibly broken. He still wasn't using it at all and we were looking at it and he was able to bend his wrist without any pain, but when we touched his arm it really hurt. So I knew at that point it wasn't his wrist. Oops.

So being the awesome mom I am, I finally took him to the doctor on Friday, almost 4 days after the incident. The pediatrician thought it was most likely a fracture and she got us an appointment with the orthopedist to get an xray and (most likely) cast. So several hours later....sure enough, he had a "buckle fracture" on both the ulna and the radius. Poor guy! They said it's very easy to heal for kids and not an uncommon injury. Their bones are so soft that when they fall with large impact, the bone can compress a bit, so on the xray you just saw two little bumps, one on each side, on both bones where it "buckled". He got to pick out his color and they quickly did a little cast for him! We were hoping he could do the splint, but his little arm was too small for even the smallest size. Luckily, it's only a half-arm cast and he only has to have it on for three weeks. But unfortunately, two of those weeks were going to be swimming lessons. :( So Eli is still doing them, but Connor has to sit and watch instead of join in.

Connor is doing amazingly well though. He still is as active as ever and it really hasn't slowed him down a bit. He loves showing it off to people and he says his arm is "strong like Hercules!" I told him he probably shouldn't use it as a shield when "sword fighting" with Eli though, like he started to the first day. And I should mention, this week has been MUCH better. Everyone seems to be settling in and finding their peace with our new life here.

First 2 Weeks in Illinois

Okay, I'm finally getting around to blogging again. So...Jeremy and Anna and I flew here on my birthday, June 29th. Our truck was supposed to arrive on the 30th, but ended up getting delayed until the 1st. Luckily, this worked out fine. Jeremy was originally supposed to start work on the 1st, but his boss said he was going to be gone that day, so he wanted him to start on the 2nd. Then, we met the property manager at the house on the 29th to get the keys and found the house filthy, so that gave us some extra time to get that taken care of.

So we moved in on the 1st, Jeremy started work on the 2nd, and the boys and Jeremy's parents came on the night of the 2nd. I was FLYING unpacking everything in those two days, let me tell you. I wanted to have the bulk of it done before the boys got here, and I accomplished a lot. On Thursday, I didn't spend any time unpacking and we went on a long walk to explore our new surroundings. We walked to the park (less than .5 mile) and Eli's school and down to the river trail. It was beautiful! The weather was great and it was nice to be out and about.

Jeremy got the next day (July 4) off and we were going to go do something, but decided just to stay close to home instead. We went to the park and played and had a picnic lunch and ate yummy food and then did a little more unpacking and settling in. Then on Saturday, Grammy and Papa stayed home with Anna while we took the boys on a way-too-long trip to Ikea. We were able to get a long of bang for our buck though and get a few things we really needed. The ONLY rooms in the entire house with overhead lights are the kitchen and dining room so we needed several floor lamps. Ugh. Not my favorite, but I wanted to get plenty so I wouldn't feel like I was living in a dungeon come winter. Thanks to Ikea we were able to get some for $6.99 each. Woohoo!

 We also listened to some fun music and had a little dance party before dinner. :)

 Oh yeah, Connor!

 The next day was Sunday and we got to go to church for the first time. Everyone was super friendly and welcoming. My friend Jolene lives in the neighboring ward and she told all her friends that I was coming, so that was very helpful! The kids and I got invited to a little "Christmas in July" party the next day and then on that day I got invited to a girls' night the next night and we've since gone over to another family's house for dinner and met another family at the park for a picnic. It's a party I tell you! There are a lot of moms with young kids just like me and they are all so quick to accept someone new, for which I'm very grateful.

Jeremy's parents went off on a Family History excursion the whole next week and then came back Friday night until they flew out Sunday after church. I didn't plan to do anything on Saturday because I thought they would be tired of traveling, but that morning, Debbie said, "Let's go to Wisconsin! I've never been!" so we did! It's just over an hour away, so we drove to Lake Geneva for a couple hours. We didn't really know what to do, but we walked around the lake for awhile and looked at all the mansions along the lake and then we came home! Haha.

 It was rainy all day at home, but up by the lake we only got a few drops. The wind was blowing pretty good the whole time though!

  We actually found a little farm that had strawberry picking on the way back, so that was fun! Not quite like Oregon strawberries, but they were still delicious.

"The corn is as high as an elephant's eye......"

 We had such a great time with Grammy and Papa, it was sad to see them go. Connor was so cute one day, he kept his hat and sunglasses on his head like this all day and said, "That's how Papa does it." Since they left, we've settled into "normal" life here and we've been having a good time finally enjoying the summer! More to come later!

Home Sweet Home

 (Fox River Trail - walking distance from our house!)

Well, we are here! We made it. Emotions have been all over the place the last week from everyone, but we're starting to settle in a bit. Jeremy, Anna and I flew in last Sunday and then the boys came on Wednesday with Jeremy's parents. We managed to get a ton of unpacking done even though the truck was delayed and our stuff didn't arrive until Tuesday instead of Monday. It ended up working out though, because the place was not clean when we arrived Sunday night, so that gave us a chance to get that taken care of, along with registering Eli for school, doing some grocery shopping, getting internet set up, etc. etc.

 (Our kitchen on Tuesday. We've made a lot of progress since then!)

Jeremy started work on Wednesday and so far, so good! There were a lot of people gone on Thursday because of the holiday weekend, so he's still meeting people, but he seems to be happy and excited for the coming year. His official title is "Energy and Infrastructure Business Development Manager". It sounds important, right? ;) We attended our ward for the first time yesterday and it seemed really nice. The primary was a lot bigger than I expected and there are three other little boys in Eli's class, one of which will be in his kindergarten class! I just found that out today and I'm really excited about that. The nursery was extremely chaotic, with only male nursery leaders, but apparently they're working on making that better...Connor refused to stay and didn't even want to be in there with Jeremy or I. Anna loved it though and didn't want to leave when we took Connor out! (Less than 2 months!!)

We met some nice people and I got invited to do several things this week already. We went to a new friends' house this morning along with three other moms and a bunch of kids and that was really fun.  One mom has two boys the same age as Eli and Connor and several others have kids pretty close in age to our kids, including a girl almost exactly Anna's age. Hooray!

(Storm clouds Monday evening outside of Costco - oh yeah!)

For those wondering, the weather has been diverse. We've had some hot muggy days (like today) and last week we had some absolutely perfect days. It's been great! As far as moving goes, it's hard to start over again and it's rough on the kids, but hopefully we'll get acclimated quickly. The house we're in is really nice and although we don't have a private yard, we have a ton of grass around (that we don't have to mow!), so I think it will suit us pretty well this year. I have a ton of pictures to put up from the last two weeks, so I'll try to get going on those soon...

For now, here's a picture at the park right by our neighborhood. We've been here twice already and we pretty much had the entire 50-acre park to ourselves. Pretty nice!